


Knights' Tale

by orphan_account



Category: Avengers (Comic), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Crossdressing, Dragons, Knights - Freeform, M/M, Princes & Princesses, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 17:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Tony is the prettiest princess, and Steve is the most oblivious knight, and there are parodied cliches and witches and towers and dragons galore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knights' Tale

“Rapunzel, Rapunzel,” says Steve’s voice from below me, “let down your hair,” and I think he’s laughing, so I stick my head out the window of the tower and make a face at him.

“You know, I always figured you would be the princess,” I say.

“Me?” says Steve, taken aback.

“Sure,” I say. “You’re pretty enough.”

Steve looks affronted, and I can’t stop myself from laughing. He’s standing down there in the sunlight, one hand propped on his hip and the visor of his helmet pushed back, and his eyes are bright and wayward locks of golden hair are falling into his eyes, and for a brilliant moment I can’t imagine being anywhere else but here.

Steve says, “Don’t sell yourself short. You make a perfectly pretty princess, Tony.”

“Sweet-talker,” I call down, and I can see his cheeks go red from here. “Are you going to get me out of this tower, or aren’t you?”

Steve frowns. “Aren’t you going to let down your hair?”

I raise an eyebrow. “What hair?”

“I thought you had long hair,” says Steve, “like Rapunzel,” and his frown is bigger now.

“I’m still a guy, Steve,” I say. “I have a mustache.”

Steve’s face is creased in thought, and I take a moment to appreciate him there in the courtyard, in gleaming silver armor, with his shield attached to his arm, a sword at his hip, and a ragged red plume drooping from his helmet. His hair is constantly falling into his eyes, and he keeps absently pushing it out of his face, in a way that makes me hunger to do it for him. He looks _very_ nice in that armor.

I wonder how he’d look out of it.

“There’s no door to the tower,” says Steve, and I snap out of my thoughts, my stomach sinking.

“Well, shit,” I say. “Your armor can’t fly, can it?”

Steve lifts a leg and waggles his foot at me. “Sorry, no rocket boots.”

“Worst-equipped knight ever,” I say, thinking hard. The walls of the tower are smooth, and the stone room I’m stuck in is bare and empty. If Steve can find a vine in the forest behind him, or even a long strip of bark, maybe we could rig up a pulley system—no, bark wouldn’t be strong enough, and we’d need something to carry me down—maybe we could weave a basket—ugh, if I had a _welder_ —

“There’s nothing for it,” says Steve seriously from below me. “You’ll have to jump.”

“ _What?_ ” I say.

“Jump,” says Steve. “Out the window.”

I glance over the edge of the tower and gulp. It seems a thousand feet to the ground. “I’ll break my neck,” I say. Does Steve have a horse? Maybe we can use the reins—

“No, you won’t,” says Steve. “I’ll catch you.”

“Catch me?” I say, raising my eyebrows.

Steve holds out his arms, and smiles at me, and suddenly it doesn’t seem so far to the ground after all.

I clamber onto the windowsill, my toes curling over the edge. “You ready?” I call down.

“Are you wearing a _dress_?” says Steve.

I jump. The ground rushes towards me, faster and faster, and I squeeze my eyes shut, suddenly sure I’m going to die—

Steve catches me, light as a feather, and I can feel my heartbeat hammering against the metal of his chest. His arms are cupped around me, under my shoulders and knees, and he’s holding me without the slightest trace of strain.

He looks me up and down. “You are. You’re wearing a dress.”

“It’s a gorgeous dress,” I say. “You obviously can’t appreciate it. Because you’re too uncultured. It’s too sophisticated for you.”

“Oh, I can appreciate it,” he says, and looks shocked at himself.

“Shut up,” I say, smirking.

“Hey, I just rescued you.”

“My hero.”

“No need to thank me, ma’am, just doing my job.”

“Wrong genre.”

There’s a small silence, and he says, “You can stand up on your own at any point, you know. Uh. If you want to.”

I hum against his chest.

“What is this?” demands a furious, shrill voice from behind us, and I strain my neck to peer over Steve’s shoulder. There’s a tall, stick-thin woman with wild, steel-grey hair, a long black dress, warts _all over_ her nose, and—oh, don’t tell me, a black hat that comes to a point at the top.

“Oh, right,” says Steve, and tries to fumble for his sword before he realizes he can’t without dropping me. He gives me a plaintive look, and with a sigh, I slide out of his arms and stand up. Steve draws his sword, and raises his shield.

“All right, criminal!” he says. “You aren’t getting away with capturing princesses any more! Your crimes will see justice when I put you in front of a court of law—”

“Still wrong genre, Steve,” I say.

“Right,” says Steve, and I can see him changing gears. He clears his throat. “Give up, foul witch!” he says. “I have rescued the princess from your unholy claws—”

“It wasn’t supposed to go this way!” says the witch, her voice rising to fingernails-on-blackboard levels. She points a gnarled finger at me. “There was supposed to be a princess! The fairest princess in all the land!”

“Well, I do try,” I say.

“And her true love would arrive and rescue her from the tower!” the witch goes on. “And they would ride off to his castle and get married and live happily ever after!”

I look around. “Actually, I think we managed that bit pretty well.”

“Except for the, you know, true love bit,” says Steve, coloring. “Uh.”

I look at him.

“But that’s not a princess!” the witch protests. “That’s a, a, a _man!_ In a dress!”

“A _sophisticated_ dress,” says Steve.

“Who says I’m not a princess?” I demand, putting my hands on my hips. “I am a _fantastic_ princess. I am the fairest princess you are ever going to get. If you found another princess, they wouldn’t be half as fair, because I am as fair as the day is long, uh, except in the winter, obviously, or, like, as the moon is bright, well, unless it’s the new moon, or it’s cloudy, or—who comes up with these similes, anyway?”

“You’re a wonderful princess, Tony” Steve assures me.

“And there was supposed to be a dragon,” says the witch. “The knight was supposed to slay a dragon. It’s not a proper story if he doesn’t slay a dragon.”

“Uh,” says Steve, and looks guilty.

I turn to look at him. “Steve, what did you do?”

“Well, I did meet a dragon on the way here,” says Steve. “But I didn’t want to slay it. I mean, it could talk. And it hadn’t even done anything, it was just sitting there. So I couldn’t exactly kill it—”

“What did you do?” I repeat, crossing my arms over the neckline of the dress, which would probably be quite revealing if I actually had anything to reveal.

“I convinced it to become an American citizen,” says Steve. He looks horribly guilty, standing there with his shield at his side and his hair falling in his eyes, and I start laughing so hard that I fall over onto the ground.

“And the white horse,” says the witch. “Where’s the white horse?”

Steve looks affronted. “I don’t do horses.”

“No,” I say, “you just convince them to become American citizens,” and I’m laughing again, tears forming at the corners of my eyes.

“You are the worst princess I have ever had the misfortune to meet!” hisses the witch.

That stops me, and I look up, frowning. “Hey. I am a wonderful princess.”

“You are the worst princess!” shrieks the witch. “You don’t sigh, you don’t sing, you don’t call bluebirds to help you—”

“ _Bluebirds_?” says Steve, at the same time as I say, “I _really_ don’t do birds.”

“You,” the witch declares, pointing a gnarled finger at me, “are an insolent, idiotic _imbecile_. You’ve ruined my costumes. You’ve ruined my plot. You’ve ruined my _knight_ —”

“ _Your_ knight?” says Steve indignantly.

“ _Improved_ your knight,” I add.

The witch is going dark with fury. “You have _ruined—my_ — _fairy tale!_ ” She narrows her eyes at me. “But I’ll show you, you, you _mockery_ of a princess. I’ll show you what a real princess is like. I’ll show you—” She raises her arms and begins to chant, a green glow rising around her, and I shoot Steve a panicked look. He glances from side to side, but he only has time to raise his sword before the world warps and bends around us, and I have to grab his arm to avoid being pulled away from him because suddenly we’re falling, falling through an endless green void that seems to stretch on for infinity in all directions—

When I come to my senses, I’m lying on grass. The sun is beating down on my eyes, and I can hear birds singing pop music tunes.

“I hate magic,” I announce to the universe.

A shadow appears in front of the sun, and I take Steve’s outstretched hand to help me to my feet. “Are you all right?” he asks.

“Never better,” I say. “The dress is gone, see?”

“Yes,” says Steve, and he looks almost disappointed. I banish the whole host of thoughts that arrive unbidden at the possibilities in that disappointed look and clear my throat.

“Where’s the witch?”

“Gone,” says Steve. "Probably watching."

I look around me. “This must be take two on the whole princess schtick. Guess I didn’t pass audition.” I bat my eyes at Steve. “I’ll always be the prettiest princess to you, won’t I?”

Steve goes very red. “I hope the dragon doesn’t come again,” he says. “It was hard enough to reason with it the first time; I don’t want to do all that again…”

“I think you’re free of the burden of converting dragons,” I say, barely suppressing a snort. “Listen, you can hear my replacement singing.”

Sure enough, over the disturbingly human sounds of birdsong comes a lovely, clear voice, drifting through the trees. Steve and I glance at each other, and Steve sighs and raises his shield.

“Come on,” he says. “We’ve got a princess to rescue.”

“Steve—” I begin, but he’s already off, crashing through the trees in the direction of the song. With a sigh, I follow him.

The tower is tall, and made of stone, and there’s a lovely maiden there, with hair the color of sun-ripened wheat that goes all the way from the window to the ground. There are three bluebirds fluttering around her, and they’re all singing together.

Steve looks up at her, and my heart hurts, suddenly. He thinks she’s beautiful. I can see it in his face. And he’s right; she’s as fair as a summer sunshine breeze, or whatever the hell it is, and she’s a princess, and if I know Steve I know he’s a knight-errant from his top to his toes, and he could love her, he could, he could, and rescue her from the tower, and win half the kingdom, and live happily ever after to the end of his days with her by his side.

And then I remember the look on his face when he saw me, in the window of the tower, mustache and ridiculous dress and all. Exasperation and wonder and amusement and something that can’t be named all at once, and as stupid as the situation seemed, as utterly ludicrous as the whole thing was, I don’t think for a moment either one of us would have wanted to be anywhere but there.

And maybe neither of us really wants to live happily ever after, after all.

“Steve,” I say, and Steve turns to me, and I pull off his helmet and kiss him as hard as I can, my fingers winding through the hair on the back of his neck, my body pressed against his. He’s frozen for a moment, and then he melts into me, his strong hand cupping my head and his arm going around me, holding me as close to him as he can, his lips soft and warm on mine.

After a few long moments, he pulls back and takes a few steps away from me. “Tony,” he says, “we can’t do this.”

I stare at him. “Why the hell not?”

He gestures to the maiden above us, who is now fluttering her eyelashes at the general universe. “There’s a princess to rescue. There’s a witch to defeat. I have to be a hero—”

“Steve,” I say, “do you really think a girl who can conjure up bluebirds to sing in four-part harmony can’t take care of herself?”

He stares at me, wavering, blue eyes wide and bright and brilliant.

I take a step towards him and raise my fingers to ghost along his cheek. His hand comes up to cover mine, and I take the second step towards him and close the distance for another kiss.

“Leave the princess in the tower,” I tell him, and he meets my eyes, and I can’t help but smile at him, because there are princesses to rescue and witches to defeat and a whole lot of heroing to do, and I think we could do it forever, he and I, side by side.

And maybe this is happily ever after, after all.


End file.
